Social Security Benefit Calculator Description

Summary description

The Office of the Chief Actuary, Social Security Administration, produces a Social
Security Benefit Calculator. It produces the Social Security benefit for an
old-age, survivor, or disability claim, given the characteristics of a
particular worker (such as birth date, past earnings, and type of benefit). It
also produces the "primary insurance amount" (PIA), "maximum family benefit",
the actuarial reduction or increment factor (for early or delayed retirement),
and the monthly benefit amount (MBA).

Online calculator

The Detailed Calculator is a comprehensive benefit calculator which is designed
to compute historical benefits as well as estimate future benefits. It is somewhat
unwieldy and can be difficult to use. If you are estimating a future retirement
benefit, you may wish to use our
Online Calculator first
because it is much easier to use.

Detailed description

There are two versions of the interactive calculator: one works on IBM PC's
and compatibles running recent versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system,
either Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, or Windows 7, and the
other runs under the Mac OS. The benefit can be computed for either a new entitlement
or a recomputation after initial entitlement. Summary results are presented on the
screen; there is an option to print out details of the computations.

The calculator can produce a benefit for any historical case from the first
Social Security benefit paid (1940). It can also produce a projected benefit,
based on standard or user-specified assumptions, through 2090.

Although we have tried to be as accurate as possible, this is not the same
calculator as is used for official Social Security calculations and it may
produce results that differ from an official calculation. In particular, for primary
benefits, we have made approximations for pre-1965 benefits and for the frozen minimum PIA,
and we only partially take account of disability non-exclusion computations and the
disability guarantee computation. In addition, the calculator is not set up to estimate
dependent or survivor benefits where the dependent or survivor also receives benefits
based on their own record, or survivor benefits where the benefit is affected by
the worker's retired worker benefit prior to death. Based on experience to date,
this calculator matches the official calculations very well, with most differences
due to late posting of earnings to the earnings record, or different assumptions
for projected benefits.

The 2015.1 version, which takes all amendments to the law, and
automatic adjustments, through 2014 into account, is now
available at this web site. It updates the 2014.2 version by updating the economic data
with the new
automatic adjustments announced on October 22, 2014.

Special note for the Mac OS version

We now have a Mac OSX version of the Detailed Calculator. It is functional but still under development.
It has all the basic features that the Windows version has, and produces the
same results for a given case. However, it is lacking the more advanced features
of the Windows version, such as context-sensitive help. We will update it as we
implement new features.

In addition, the Mac version does not work on Macs running Lion or newer
versions of the OS X operating system. We are currently working on producing a
new Mac version which will work on newer versions of OS X, but this may take some time.

Important Information:

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Disclaimer

The Social Security Administration (SSA) website contains links to websites not affiliated with the United States government. These may include State and Local governmental agencies, international agencies, and private entities.

SSA cannot attest to the accuracy of information provided by such websites. If we provide a link to such a website, this does not constitute an endorsement by SSA or any of its employees of the information or products presented on the non-SSA website.

Also, such websites are not within our control and may not follow the same privacy, security or accessibility policies. Once you visit such a website, you are subject to the policies of that site.